Some of us will - even years later - remember poems we learned at school. Like it or not they are lodged in our memories. Thanks to Poetry by Heart, the national poetry recitation competition, many of our students now also have a piece of poetry memorised. Silverdale students have had some success in the competition for the past few years and this year we were pleased to see Oenone, Y12 and Grace, Y9 make it to the National Finals.

Both girls attended the final at Shakepeare’s Globe theatre in June and victory was ours with Oenone winning in the KS5 Classic category with the poems ‘Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold and Mr Bleaney by Philip Larkin.

Oenone said that she found learning her poems a challenge but that years of memorising lines for drama really helped. She also acknowledged that Covid has taken its toll on confidence at public-speaking and performing, having denied people the opportunity to do much of it.

She said, " I'm very happy I worked up the courage to perform as I feel it probably served as a form of exposure therapy for daunting scenarios such as that, and I absolutely feel more confident! Everybody who performed was so incredibly talented, and it was wonderful to get to share that experience with them on such a renowned and historic stage.”